Deferred Maintenance and the FBI

The General Services Administration (GSA) has doubled down on its promise to find the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) a new home and pledged by the end of the year to give Congress a “workable solution” for consolidating the bureau’s headquarters.

Michael Gelber, acting commissioner for GSA’s Public Buildings Service, recently said “Yes, sir” when asked by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) if he would deliver a plan within 120 days.

Richard Haley, chief financial officer and assistant director of the facilities and logistics services division at the FBI, chimed in with “absolutely,” when asked the same question during a recent hearing of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works.

“It is clear from today’s testimony that the FBI needs a new headquarters. Fixing up the Hoover building with its $100 million backlog of maintenance needs makes little sense,” Barrasso said. “The elaborate plan to swap the Hoover building for a new headquarters facility was, in hindsight, not the best option. We need a new, cost effective and achievable plan to get the FBI into a new headquarters facility.”

Some of the committee members also expressed their concern for both the welfare of workforce in the building and impact the outdated structure could have on national security.

“We can all agree that there is an obvious need to move the FBI out of the Hoover Building to a new location and to consolidate other FBI locations,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) “Simply put, the Hoover building is an aging building that no longer meets the needs of the FBI. It suffers significantly from deferred maintenance, and the employees bear the brunt of that lack of investment.”